


To Be A Warrior

by TheAndorianMiningConsortium



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Klingons, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 19:02:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1699169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAndorianMiningConsortium/pseuds/TheAndorianMiningConsortium





	To Be A Warrior

 

Alexander was more than a little nervous. It was not often that one was asked to the general's personal chamber, and whilst he might have been a member of Martok's family... he didn't really know him very well at all. As far as the Son of Worf knew, his father's brother or.. _friend_ or.. _whatever-he-was_ , was just like every other Klingon. Big and strong and intimidating, and ready to kill you the moment you said something he didn't like.

Standing, dithering in the doorway, Alexander gave a little shudder. He really _didn't_ want to go in. For a moment, he wondered if he could get away with just slinking off. Perhaps he could say that he had forgotten. Everyone knew how scatterbrained he was, so it wouldn't be all that difficult to believe. Or perhaps perhaps he could... his thoughts were cut short as all at once the door opened, and there stood Martok, towering over him for all the world like he could reach out and crush him in his hands.

Alexander grit his teeth. He wasn't nervous. And, perhaps if he kept telling himself that, he would start to believe it...

"Ah!" said Martok. "Alexander!" the general's voice was so relaxed and friendly that it made the youngster start with surprise. He'd been expecting to be yelled at... not to be greeted in this... unsettlingly casual manner. "Come in," Martok went on. "And sit down."

"Yes, Sir," mumbled Alexander as he obediently dragged his feet through the doorway. The friendliness, he decided, was not really friendliness at all, but merely the calm before a storm. Martok was obviously pleased that he was going to get the chance to humiliate and punish Alexander, having invited him here just for that purpose... so _that_ was what he was so cheerful about.

Inside, the decorations to be everything that Alexander had expected to find in a Klingon's personal room. Low lighting, red tinted. Bat'leth on the wall. Images of Kahless adorning the furnishings. The chairs made of flat metal, and no cushions to soften his tender cheeks. Oh well. He sat down, having no excuse not to, perching himself awkwardly on the nearest chair.

Martok pulled another chair, sweeping it across the room and seating himself opposite Alexander. For a moment, a look of disapproval crossed his creased face. _Have I said something wrong_? the boy wondered. But the look passed a moment later, and - despite the cold sturdiness of the hard, uncushioned chair – which didn't seem to bother him at all - Martok settled, relaxed.

"Your father wished me to speak with you," he said. "He's concerned about how you're doing."

Alexander hung his head. He knew that he was a disappointment to his father, and did not try to deny the fact. It was a constant source of unhappiness to him.

"Have you been practising with the bat'leth as you were instructed?"

"I..." the youngster hesitated, wringing his hands. "...Yes," he said at last.

"And have you been making any progress?"

"N... not really," Alexander mumbled.

"Hrmmmmmm," Martok looked away, and an uncomfortable silence prevailed. For a few moments, Alexander wished longingly for a chasm to open in the ground and swallow him up. Apparently, it wasn't bad enough that Worf should drill him unforgivingly and relentlessly - now his father had set _Martok_ on his back too. And Martok was, if anything, even more frightful than Worf. Why, Alexander asked himself sadly, did he have to be born a Klingon, of all the races? He'd be much better suited to another species. Perhaps if he'd been born a human, or one of the nicer species like a Betazoid or a Bolian, he'd have been able to make a better life for himself. But no... he was a Klingon, and it was just his luck to have been born to a people who demanded everything of him which he could not do. He pouted, and stared at the floor.

"What's the problem?" Martok asked next, breaking the silence.

"I... I don't know," Alexander muttered. He looked up, meeting the general's stern eye with an unsettled look of his own. "I.. I've done everything my father said, but I just can't seem to get the hang of it."

"Hrrrrmmm," Martok said again, voice rumbling and uneasy. He looked away, and a second uncomfortable silence prevailed.

"I'm just not cut out to be a warrior!" Alexander burst out, his discomfort and unease getting the better of him. "I've tried and I've tried, and I can't fight. I just can't do it! I..." Martok turned to look at him, studying him now with a curious eye. "I... I'm sorry, Sir," Alexander's voice trailed off. "I didn't mean..."

"Alexander," Martok interrupted. His voice was stern, but oddly, not unkind. Still, Alexander braced himself. He was surely going to get a verbal flogging for this, if not a physical one...

"We are _all_ warriors," Martok went on. "Each and every one of us is born a warrior, whether we like it or not. It's in our blood."

Alexander hung his head. "Yes, Sir."

"Don't give me that," the general replied, and suddenly, in one sweeping movement, he was on his feet. Lifting his head, Alexander watched with a sinking heart as Martok pulled down the bat'leth from the wall. _So._ He _was_ going to injure him... as a punishment for his continued failures. He stiffened, bracing himself for the attack.

Martok sat down. "Look at this bat'leth," he said, and placed it in the boy's hand.

"Wh-what?"

"Just look at it. Observe the craftsmanship. See how fine the pointed tips are, how perfect the curve of the metal. Touch it. Feel the edge of the blade as you run your fingertips along its surface."

Alexander did as he was told, though he had absolutely no idea why he was being asked to. His brow furrowed in confusion, mystified.

"This blade," Martok told him in his deep, rumbling voice, "was crafted by a man I knew who lived on the outskirts of the First City."

"I see," said Alexander, who didn't see at all.

"That man was a warrior," Martok explained. "And he served the Klingon Empire like every other true warrior that has ever lived. But... he was _no_ fighter. No passion for battle in his veins. He learned, early in his life, that he had no business being a soldier. For when he attempted to learn how to _use_ a sword, the correct moves escaped him. In training, he would always fall down, and be beaten by fighters younger and smaller than himself. It didn't matter how much he practised, or studied. He could never learn how to fight. Because fighting was not what he was supposed to do.

"He found his true calling in life when he put his tools to metal for the first time. What he lacked in fighting ability, he found in craftsmanship. He discovered that he had a passion for this art, a deep and powerful instinct. And with his great talent, that with practice and hard work, he honed into a formidable skill, he was able to create swords, such as this one that you are holding now. The man was _no_ soldier, but he _was_ a warrior in his way. A warrior of artistry, with the power to build weapons that he placed in the hands of fighters.

"Without men and women such as him, there would be no weapons for the soldiers to hold. Building and crafting is no less important than battle. Being a warrior does not mean that you _have_ to be a fighter, Alexander. If all warriors were fighters, there would be nothing for us to fight for."

"Are you saying I should become an artist?"

Martok shook his head. "I'm saying that there is no shame in admitting that a life on the battlefield is not for you. You could be an artist, or a builder, an architect. You could be a great songwriter, or a musician. You could be a writer of poetry and fiction. Or a historian. Or one of those fine, sturdy people that breeds targ for a living. Or... well, there are _many_ things you could be. You may have yet to find your true calling in life, but you will find it. One day."

As he looked at the bat'leth again, Alexander saw it now in a different way. For the first time in his life, he saw not just a weapon, but a thing that had been hand crafted by a skilled pair of hands. Metals that had been mined from the ground, sculpted and reshaped. The point of the blade, which he now touched gently with his thumb, had no doubt stabbed the life out of many of Martok's enemies. But what about before that? Had the artist that Martok spoke of chipped away at it, long into the night? Had he laid it in the workshop whilst he kissed his wife, or hugged his children? Had he cut his finger on it by accident, and sucked the wound until it stopped bleeding? A sudden fresh wreath of stories that Alexander had never considered, suddenly now washed into his head. The bat'leth had a history that began long before Martok had claimed it. It had never really occurred to Alexander to think about how these weapons were made, who made them, and why. They just existed, and he didn't question it.

He glanced up, and found the general looking at him, a small, knowing, almost fatherly smile just vaguely settling on his face. Tentatively Alexander raised the weapon, and placed it back into the general's hands.

"I don't think my father would like that," he muttered sadly.

"Perhaps not at first," Martok told him. "But he will come around. You must honour your father, Alexander, but you must also walk your own path. You may yet find that you can be a soldier! Or you may find another path more suitable. The journey is ahead. It may be long, and difficult, and you may get lost along the way. But do not fear the journey. Embrace it."

As he left, Alexander heaved a sigh of relief, and perhaps, just a little satisfaction. His mind was clearer than it had been, and his troubles, whilst still hanging over him, were a little less like a black cloud of doom, and a little more like a pale fog. Cloudy, murky, and difficult to see through. But not unmanageable. He had gone in, expecting to be reprimanded, dressed down, humiliated by his father's best friend. He'd expected Martok to yell at him, to wound him, and then report back to Worf so that Worf could repeat the humiliation all over again.

He had not expected kindness.

That night, he slept a little easier, and his dreams were less troubled than they had been in a very long time.


End file.
